Systemic games are often described as though the solution is simply to connect everything to everything else. Fire affects grass. Water conducts electricity. Sound attracts enemies. Objects have weight. Characters remember what happened. Weather changes visibility. Food spoils. Doors react to pressure. Somebody suggests adding wind, and suddenly the engineering team is explaining why every loose object in the game now needs an opinion about aerodynamics. These relationships can create remarkable depth. When rules remain consistent across different situations, players begin treating the world as something they can understand. They form expectations, test ideas and carry knowledge into new encounters. A mechanic stops being a button they press and becomes part of a larger model of how the world behaves...
